The Corrupt, Authoritarian UN

The recent vote of the UN General Assembly to admit Palestine as a nation with observer status at the UN reveals how undemocratic and corrupt the General Assembly has become. Dominated by tiny nations, which represent nobody, it is a body without any legitimacy.

Start with the Lilliputians that run the organization. A voting majority of the 193 nations in the General Assembly — 96 countries (one vote per nation) — have fewer than five million people living there. In total, the countries have a population of only 241 million people, far less than the 310 million that live in the USA. Here are some of the “nations” that have a vote equal to that of the United States in the UN General Assembly:

Nauru: 10,000 population

Tuvalu: 10,000 population

Palau: 20,000 population

San Marino: 32,386 population

Monaco: 33,000 population

Liechtenstein: 35,904 population

St. Kitts & Nevis: 38,960 population

All stats are from our book “Here Come The Black Helicopters: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom.”

In all, 12 countries have fewer than 100,000 inhabitants and 40 have fewer than one million. Why should we let these countries vote on global policy? Just because a group of people decides to set up a nation, why should the U.N. admit it with a vote equal to the U.S.?

And lots of the larger nations that vote in the U.N. are authoritarian and un-democratic. When the delegate from Russia votes on admitting Palestine, does he vote for 140 million Russians or for one man — Vladimir Putin? And who does the Chinese delegate represent? 1.3 billion people or the dozen men on the Politburo?

Freedom House, a bi-partisan organization founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and 1940 GOP nominee Wendell Wilkie, rates nations based on their degree of democracy. It reports that 57 percent of the world’s population lives in countries that are not free. Only 87 of the 193 nations in the General Assembly are free. So whom do the others represent? Not their people, just their dictators or ruling juntas.

The premise of the U.N. is that it represents all nations regardless of their forms of government. That makes sense when issues of war or peace are being adjudicated. If a dictator controls a country and its military, you have to give him a seat at the peace talks otherwise you can’t negotiate. But to accord him a place and a vote when global policy is being set — as in the General Assembly — makes no sense. He only speaks for himself.

And finally, there is the corruption that pervades the U.N., making nations very susceptible to oil-linked bribery. Transparency International rates the degree of integrity in each of the world’s nations. It rates only 50 of the 182 nations it studied as honest.

So what are we doing in a global body that is dominated by tiny, authoritarian and corrupt nations? Why do we confer any legitimacy on them by our presence? Without the U.S. participation, the General Assembly would be the irrelevant joke it ought to be.